


Work for It

by JaneDavitt



Series: Alligator [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7205894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For those readers who wanted to know what happened at work with these two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work for It

I frown at the report in my hand, estimating the potential cost to the department, and wincing. What the hell was he thinking letting Pat go on vacation with one team member out sick and another on paternity leave? No way would we have the Sonway shipment ready on time, and each day late would cost us thousands.

I call him in, steeling myself not to slip from my chair to kneel at his feet. Not here. We’re at work. What’s between us can’t be switched off, but his standing order is to treat me exactly as I would any other employee and I’ve done my best not to fail him.

Once was enough. The memory of the cane falling against my ass and thighs as he lectured me on favoritism lingered long after the welts had healed. I’d used my position as department head to give us two weeks’ vacation at the same time, leaving a co-worker unable to attend her sister’s wedding. I’d fixed it once I realized what I’d done, but it hadn’t spared me from Sir’s displeasure.

He smiles at me when the door’s closed, warmer than any smile I’m allowed to give him, his gaze assessing me. His property. His slave. I want to tell him I’d refused a muffin with my mid-morning coffee, and walked up six flights of stairs to improve my stamina and make me more pleasing in his eyes. To confide that my ass ached from the fucking he’d given me in the middle of the night, waking me with a slap, hands rough on my pliant body, punishing me as I scrambled into position too sluggishly, ass high, cheeks spread with sleep-clumsy hands, my dry hole gaping, hungry, greedy for the burn of two fingers shoved in deep.

Instead I toss the report across the desk. “You screwed up,” I tell him tonelessly. “I’ll need to pull people off another job to ensure we deliver on time. Then I’ll need to reassign people to help them and so on. All because you’re too soft-hearted to say no to your team.”

It’s true. I’ve screamed my throat raw, wept and groveled and never gotten a second removed from a timed penalty, but that’s me. It’s different for them. He’s firm but indulgent too. They adore him. I can relate.

He purses his lips. Lips I’m allowed to kiss now and then. “With efficient time management—”

“Overtime, you mean. That costs money too.”

“My team needs support. We’ve been understaffed for a month.”

“Then ask for it!” I breathe deeply, striving for calm. He’s taught me how to achieve it with delicate savagery, calculated, precise sadism, training my mind to obey as perfectly as my body. “This is the first hint of any problem. I have to go off your reports and you’ve glossed over the issues.”

His gaze falls. “Yes. That’s fair comment.”

I lean forward across the desk, yearning for his hands on me, the deep, commanding voice telling me what to do in explicit detail. “It’s difficult to ask me for something. I get it. But you need to learn how to do it when we’re here.”

His head snaps up, a warning blazing from his eyes. I’ve crossed the line, but something in me doesn’t care. He crossed it first. “I believe it’s within my ability to do that.”

Sarcasm means he’s shaken. I push him harder, the way he does me when I’m sure I can’t take a second longer with my balls clamped and weighted, or another slash of the whip. “Is it within your ability to take Sandra’s job? Because she’s taking early retirement and your name’s top of the list.”

“I don’t want to take it.”

I rise and sit on the edge of the desk, looking down at him. I’m dizzy with the rush of disobedience, sick with it, a kid with a bellyful of candy and soda. “There are three places you could be at work. Under me, over me, or my equal. You’d have no problem with the second, and the first amuses you because it’s fake, a running joke. But my equal…you’d fucking hate that. So you stay here, underperforming, getting your kicks watching me flounder and squirm giving you orders. I hate it. I can’t do it. Take the job. Please, Sir. Take the damn job.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Or?”

I say my safeword, say it clearly, every syllable distinct, and see him flinch.

“You’re not my equal,” he says finally when the weight of our silence becomes too much to bear. “And I’m not yours. We’re different in every way and it’s impossible to give a value to those differences and declare a winner. But you’re right; this situation is an ordeal. An ongoing test with no end in sight. And when you’ve reached a point where—”

“Where I’ve failed it?”

“Where obeying me has become impossible, then you’re right to tell me. Perhaps with a little less anger and a little more respect, but I’ll overlook it this once.” He stands. “My application for Sandra’s job went in yesterday. I’m being interviewed on Friday.”

I can’t speak. My throat constricts around a thorn-spiked ball of confusion and dismay.

He smiles, a world of sadness behind the curve of his lips. “I know when your skin is about to split, when a bruise is bone-deep, when you’re defying me on the inside, no matter how perfect your behavior. Did you think I couldn’t see this coming?” He steps close, cups my face for a moment, branding me with the cool brush of his fingers. “Trust me more,” he murmurs. “Please. You can, you know.”

It’s that plea that breaks me, but I keep my tears unshed until later, when he’s there to watch them fall. They belong to him. Like me.


End file.
